Battle of the Atlantic/Merchant Marine

[Story]

My father, from late 1942 until 1946.

You might find these links of interest.

http://www.usmm.org/ww2.html
1 in 26 mariners serving aboard merchant ships in World WW II died in the line of duty, suffering a greater percentage of war-related deaths than all other U.S. services. Casualties were kept secret during the War to keep information about their success from the enemy and to attract and keep mariners at sea.

http://www.armed-guard.com/

http://www.marad.dot.gov/Education/history/ww2.html

I *think* the Z-card is a right-after-WWII document, based on lessons learned during the war.

 

[52Styleline]

My Father was in the Merchant Marine during WWII. Somewhere around here I have his papers. They include his license, rating card, and some doccuments from the various ships on which he served. Even thought he was from the west coast, he did all of his service in the Atlantic. He was on one ship that was sunk by u-boat attack but he would never talk about it. Must have been pretty awful.

 

[TailendCharlie]

Z-card

Oh yeah, the Zcard resembles like a dogtag/credit card with s.s. numbers,race ,nationality,height weight,hair and eye color,this card has induction date of 6/23/45.Its called a zcard because the merchant union number on the card starts with a z******,its also made of aluminum.

 

[Sly Style]

My grandfather was in the merchant marine and was a mate on those transports back and forth in the atlantic. He always sailed on oil vessels, a lovely exploding target. I have his uniforms, his papers, and some pictures of his!

 

[Story]

Ceremony marks 65 years since the turning point of the Battle of the Atlantic
1 day ago

HALIFAX — Only the sound of water lapping against the rocks could be heard Saturday as veterans paused at the edge of a boardwalk, tossing long-stemmed red roses into Halifax harbour to mark 65 years since the turning point of the Battle of the Atlantic.
Complete article at
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5h7RDAu7J2HyPH8v_vdctdwyYUARw

See also
http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/ww2Timeline/atlantic.html

Something the popular history tends to forget -

Service Number serving War Dead Percent Ratio

Merchant Marine 243,000* 9,497** 3.90% 1 in 26
Marines 669,108 19,733 2.94% 1 in 34
Army 11,268,000 234,874 2.08% 1 in 48
Navy 4,183,466 36,958 0.88% 1 in 114
Coast Guard 242,093 574 0.24% 1 in 421
Total 16,576,667 295,790 1.78% 1 in 56
http://www.usmm.org/faq.html

 

[Mojito]

Thanks for posting those links, Story. The merchant service in World War II (also WWI) is one of those oft-neglected areas of study, but the statistics are absolutely chilling. The fatalities in the North Atlantic convoys in particular are numbing, but they suffered elsewhere as well. In WWI it was said in the British mercantile marine that "men went into the RN for safety". One of the most powerful fictional depictions from the British MN perspective is of course The Cruel Sea. I always found the Tower Hill memorial one of the most moving memorials to both both wars.

A few years ago I was involved in the placing of a plaque at a major cultural intitution to commemorate the end of WWII. Part of the research involved finding clear representations of the badge for each branch of the services so our design team could etch them into the plaque. In consultation with those involved in putting up the memorial, the MN badge was included as well - it proved surprisingly difficult to get a clear, usable representation of the device, but one of the MN associations over the country was able to help us out.

 

[Story]

In the event that the original thread is unsalvagable, from recollection here's the article and table I posted, hopefully of interest to y'all.

Ceremonies across country mark Battle of North Atlantic, pay tribute to fallen
http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5h0HOwMebRyx0YZhgJKvjHKbk_Wuw

HALIFAX — Roland Marshall, 80, stood in the sunshine on the deck of HMCS Sackville on Sunday, looking out at the calm waters off Halifax from which he and so many other wartime sailors departed from more than six decades ago.

Marshall, an ordinary seaman during the Battle of the Atlantic, was joined by more than 100 veterans, loved ones and military personnel aboard the historic, blue-and-white corvette to remember the confrontation.

A ceremony was also held in Ottawa to mark the 65th anniversary of the turning point of the six-year battle - the longest running of the Second World War.

See also
http://www.northumberlandtoday.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=1014281
http://www.canada.com/calgaryherald/news/city/story.html?id=5f131c1d-c0e2-49f2-9843-b42765410d66
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Atlantic_(1939-1945)

Not to discount Allied Merchant Marine losses, but to illustrate something usually glossed over in popular history -

http://www.usmm.org/casualty.html
Service Number serving War Dead Percent Ratio
Merchant Marine 243,000* 9,521** 3.90% 1 in 26
Marines 669,108 19,733 2.94% 1 in 34
Army 11,268,000 234,874 2.08% 1 in 48
Navy 4,183,466 36,958 0.88% 1 in 114
Coast Guard 242,093 574 0.24% 1 in 421
Total 16,576,667 295,790 1.78% 1 in 56

Moderators, if the other thread comes back to life, please delete this one.

 

[June]

Story-thanks for reposting. Was hoping this would show up again. Always glad to read about the Merchant Marines and their contributions. The site www.usmm.org is a gold mine of information and definitely worth exploring.

 

[SMUPhil]

My brother is currently attending the US Merchant Marine Academy in King's Point, NY. Its campus is the old Chrysler estate on Long Island. Really neat location with easy access to NYC.

 

[Story]

My brother is currently attending the US Merchant Marine Academy in King's Point, NY. Its campus is the old Chrysler estate on Long Island. Really neat location with easy access to NYC.

Is PT still conducted by taking a long boat out into the bay?

 

[rumblefish]

My brother is currently attending the US Merchant Marine Academy in King's Point, NY. Its campus is the old Chrysler estate on Long Island. Really neat location with easy access to NYC.

And great striped bass fishing all around their docks and breakwaters.

Ask your brother about the CAORF simulator. Neat stuff, I used to service it's Halon system.

 

[Story]

The fatalities in the North Atlantic convoys in particular are numbing, but they suffered elsewhere as well. .

My father served in the MM and was Liberties in a few part of some North Atlantic convoys. I distinctly remember as a boy his tales of ships torpedoed at the front of the convoy and the guys on the bridge relating how they could only watch lifeboats full of their classmates float past on the swells/waves. Stopping to pick up survivors would make any ship a sitting duck, which meant they had to be left for the escorts (which may or more often, may not locate them).

Once torpedoed, the odds of a merchant seaman surviving and being rescued were poor. Those who were not killed outright in the explosion, were often badly injured. Many drowned, suffocated by oil, and paralyzed from the cold of the the frigid North Atlantic waters. Others who did manage to make it to a lifeboat or raft, were often left behind as it was too dangerous for another ship to stop and pick them up.
http://members.tripod.com/~merchantships/merchantseamentribute.html

 

[ranchnman]

good stuff!

 

[Norumbega]

This is my first post on The Fedora, I've been lurking for a few years.

This particular topic is dear to my heart, and one to which I can relate as a Gold Star family member. As others have attested, the Merchant Marine suffered horrific casualties during WWII.
My own grandfather, a USN veteran of WWI went back to sea at the age of 53 telling my grandmother that he couldn't stand to see so many young guys getting killed. Ironically, he would lose his life on his maiden voyage in March '43, just a few hours short of England.
If this post continues, I might return to it with a lengthy story of the loss of his ship which I researched if it proves of interest to anyone.

 

[Story]

Ironically, he would lose his life on his maiden voyage in March '43, just a few hours short of England. If this post continues, I might return to it with a lengthy story of the loss of his ship which I researched if it proves of interest to anyone.

Please, share with us.

And welcome to the FL.

*
In early January, Fox released Running the Gauntlet: The Merchant Marine
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,477894,00.html

This is also worth reading
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,477889,00.html

 

[Norumbega]

This is something I wrote in 2007. In any civilized circle it would be seen as raw, ugly, and unorganized to which I plead guilty. I suppose it just poured out of me, because I've carried it with me since I was a small kid growing up on a farm in Southern Maine. I will say that it is the result of many years of on again, off again research.
Secondly, I'm sensitive to posting too much at once being a new member to this site. I do not wish to monopolize someone else's thread, so perhaps I should limit this to a bit at a time, over time. I'll leave that to the reader, who I'll hope will be honest and tell me either too much or not enough.
What I do hope is that it will provoke discussion over this oft overlooked aspect of the war. There was no VE or VJ Day without the Merchant Marine and their heroic sacrifice. With that said....on to my ugly writing style. Please bare with me:

"This is going to be a story that I suppose I'll peck away at. It will not be organized and concise...I'm not a writer. I don't know where it's going, nor what it will include. It will, I imagine, resemble more of a rough sea complete with it's ups and downs. It's a story told as my brain dictates it, nothing more, but it's a story of my grandfather, bits of which I have collected and stored as I've known it, and later in life, how I found it to be.

I'll begin with the fact that he was born in Sommerville, Massachusettes, Nov. 29, 1891. He was one of 10 children, placed in an orphanage as a boy because his mother could not care for them all. His father ran off with another woman leaving my great grandmother with them to fend for herself. She did the best that she could at that time.

I don't know if he ever remained in contact with his brothers and sisters, somewhere along the way they began to be separated and to this day I suppose I have family between here and Labrador. One thing that I do know about my grandfather, is that even as a boy he had great mechanical aptitude, which would put him in good stead later on in life. He would need it because he would never go beyond a grade school education.

I don't know much about his formative years, nor what comprised his early life, but he must have possessed a penchant for ships and the sea. He was serving on tugs and the like prior to WWI. In 1912, he enlists and serves in the U.S. Navy. I remember my dad telling me that he had opined that he found his naval experience, "like being in hell with your back broke". I have no idea what type of ship he served upon, but I do have a photo of him standing with a friend in uniform in front of a turret of what looked like three 6" guns. Apparently he never lost his love of the sea, because he seemed to seek berth after berth upon it. At some time during this period, he also met my grandmother, I know not where or when. The record indicates, according to my mother, that they were married in Manhattan on May 20, 1921. My grandmother hated the city and wanted to move back to the outskirts of Worcester, Massachusettes, which they finally did. It would prove to hamper his ability to earn the above average wages he was making on tugs and barges.

One thing that I also notice about my grandfather was that he seemed to suffer from a sense of wanderlust-------or perhaps it was just that he was always looking for a better wage.

In a span of 10 years, from 1910-1921, including his stint in the Navy, he held 13 different jobs, all but one on a ship or tug, serving as everything from a coal passer and fireman, to oiler, assistant engineer to finally Chief Engineer. As someone who was very handy mechanically, he experienced wages considered above average for it's day varying from $9/wk. in 1910 to a decade later with the astronomical wage of $186/mo.

Yet, the day that they packed up and left New York harbor, their fortune turned and he was forced to look for odd jobs to pay the bills. By that time, my Aunt had been born, to be followed by my father and his brother. The family was growing.

My grandfather loved music......and more importantly, he loved dancing. My mother mentioned that he was known for always bringing a separate pair of dancing shoes. Later on when my dad was a small boy, they were living upstairs over what had once been a tavern that dated back to the Revolutionary War. Downstairs they frequently hosted dances on Saturday evenings. My grandfather would hire a local band, and out of his pocket, shell out his precious savings for several cases of coke which they would sell to the thirsty crowd. The tavern being situated on a muddy lane, it was very easy to get the jalopy's of the day mired in the ruts and it was up to my father and his younger brother to keep the draft horses hitched in order to pull people out.

And, so life went. In talks with my dad before he passed away, he remembered idyllic days as a boy. There were the dances.....ice skating on the pond nearby with all the local kids, and working on area farms. In one of my father's whimsical moments he said that he could remember coming home from working in summer and laying on his stomach on the floor, resting his cheek on the cool stone of the hearth. Such was life I in simpler days.

Cont'd

It's strange what the mind remembers. I can remember things going back to pre-school, but I couldn't tell you what I ate two days ago.

I remember the day that I found out that my grandfather had been killed in the war. I was going to school half-days. On this particular day, I was seated at the kitchen table at our farmhouse. My mother was stirring something in a saucepan on the wood stove with her back to me when out of the blue I remember thinking about my grandparents. I knew my mothers side very well. Both were still alive and active in our lives. We would travel to see them on holidays, or they would come up to summer at our farm for long periods of time.

Yet, on this day my thought had turned to my other grandparents. I had known my other grandmother somewhat. Whenever we traveled to stay with my mothers folks we would always take a ride over to see my father's mom, who was now living in a top floor apt. on a small rural farm outside of Worcester. I would never come to know her as well as my other grandparents and my memories of her are grainy.

On this day however, as my mum stood there stirring the saucepan, I remember blurting out a question to her about my grandfather and how come I never saw him. I remember my mother sort of glancing over her shoulder and then she paused and said that well, he had died. And, I asked how. She whacked the spoon on the side of the pan and kind of turned around and said that he had been killed. I asked who had killed him to which she replied that it was a long time ago (which in reality it wasn't), but that it was war.

You could have hit me with a bat and I wouldn't have blinked. I couldn't believe it. Some one had intentionally killed my grandfather. In asking her who it was, she replied that it was the Germans and that it had happened on the ocean-------which wasn't resonating with me at all. I thought war was about army men. Looking back at it now, I know it upset my mum to share this revelation because she knew it had upset me, but that phrase "it was war", always stuck with me.

My father had never spoken of his dad to me, but every year during the last of March, his brother & sister would come up from Massachusettes and we'd all drive down to the ocean. My dad would bring with him, a wreath that he'd had made up at a florist, and he would climb out over the rocks as far as he could and throw the wreath out on to the ocean. He would stand there a few minutes, as did we all, and then he would make his way back and we would hop in the car and make the trip back home. I remember that on occasion my fathers pant legs would sometimes get soaked.

One day he came to me and gave me the memorial frame that all the Gold Star families had received from the Mystic Steamship Company, whom the ship had been registered to. It was a frame and in the middle of it was a miniature life saving ring with a photo of my grandfather in the center of it. On the outside of the ring was painted the words, "S.S. William P. Frye." Rope lined the interior of the frame and below his picture were the Merchant Marine medals he had been awarded. I hung it up in my room over my bed and draped it with two small American flags on sticks. Save for what my dad shared on occasion, or family folklore dictated surrounding the sinking of the Frye, this was all I knew until I was much older. On the day that I found that I could afford to buy a personal computer, I also found that it would become the tool that I used to begin destroying the myths.

The Hunt begins
The first thing I did was to begin researching the ship itself.
I found out that the William P. Frye had been built by the New England Shipbuilding Company in So. Portland, Maine. It was built in February of 1943. LOA was 441 feet x 47 x37. I should note here as well before America retrofitted and began pumping out ships on a weekly basis that at the outset of war, the WSA (War Shipping Administration), had placed under it's control, all merchant vessels, refitting them with armament, armor, and counter-measure equipment such as degaussing. Degaussing was simply the act of "demagnetizing" a ship so that it would not attract magnetic mines. This was first accomplished by laying electromagnetic coils into the ships, which was quite expensive. A cheaper method was found by the Navy called "wiping". They simply dragged a large electrical cable along the side of the ship with approx. 2000 amps flowing through it, which induced the proper field into the ship in the form of a slight bias.
The WSA assumed responsibility for the ships, should they be damaged or sunk, and contracted with qualified shipping companies to operate them. Cargo assignment and routing was provided by the U.S. Navy.

The merchant ships also began carrying a Navy Armed Guard contingent of one officer and about twenty men to operate and maintain the guns, although they were often short of that complement. The gun crews were filled out with civilian crew members, sometimes including ship's officers.

Initial armament was by guns drawn from the stored weapons from World War I. Emphasis was on the stern weapon, often a 4 inch 50 caliber gun, supplemented with a lighter caliber gun in the bow and machine guns of .30 and .50 caliber distributed about the ship, such as on the flying bridge. When more suitable weapons became available as weapon production ramped up, these lighter weapons were replaced with heavier and more modern equipment.

The Liberty Ship was the most numerous ship design in sea service, with over 2,700 built during World War II. It can serve as the prime example of the armed merchant ship and its weapons.

Armament was typically one 5 inch 38 caliber gun on the stern; one 3 inch 50 caliber gun in the point of the bow; a 20 mm Oerlikon machine gun on each of the four corners of the flying bridge (the open top deck of the midship house); and two 20 mm Oerlikon guns, one on the end of each wing of the after steering station atop the poop house. All of the guns were mounted in circular gun tubs about waist high protected with plastic armor. This gave a total armament of one 5 inch, one 3 inch and six 20 mm weapons.

Plastic armor was composed of a bituminous (blacktop) matrix impregnated with stones. It was invented by the British to replace expensive and scarce steel armor. Plastic armor was also used to protect the bridge and radio room of merchant ships. Troop Transport Liberties, which were fitted out to carry 500 troops plus their combat equipment, retained the 5 inch 38 caliber gun on the stern and the 3 inch 50 caliber gun on the bow. The 20 mm Oerlikon guns at the after steering station were replaced by two 3 inch 50 caliber guns. Two 20 mm Oerlikon guns were added on the foredeck and two more on the afterdeck, all in raised gun tubs and intended to supplement the four 20 mm guns on the flying bridge. This provided a total armament of one 5 inch, three 3 inch, and eight 20 mm guns. There was no fire control equipment; engagement was over open sights under the direction of the Armed Guard Officer whose action station was on the bridge.

A merchant ship is required to post a notice called the “Station Bill” that lists each crewman’s position and his station while on watch, and his station and duty during an emergency; such as, “Third Mate, Watch Station - Bridge, Emergency Station - Bridge, assist Captain.” In wartime, gun crew stations were also listed and assigned to civilian crew members. Volunteers for service in the Merchant Marine were trained by the U.S. Maritime Service under the War Shipping Administration, a quasi-military organization modeled after the training organization of the U.S. Coast Guard. In basic training – boot camp – these recruits were given brief training to teach them how to serve in the gun crew at all positions except gun captain, and the gun aiming positions for azimuth and elevation. In advanced training, such as that for Radio Officers, lessons in aiming the weapon were added. On shipboard, gun crew assignments were generally as ammunition passers and loaders. They were also competent to assume the duties of disabled Navy gun crewmen, and to fill out shortages in the other positions of the Armed Guard gun crews.

These ship's armament was meant to be defensive in nature. The standing orders for a merchant ship in combat with a surface ship or surfaced submarine were to turn away, put the attacker on the stern and run (or, when feasible when in contact with a surfaced submarine, to ram him.) Thus, the heaviest armament was on the stern with the tactical intention of discouraging pursuit."

To be cont'd

 

[dhermann1]

I had a very distant cousin back in England who supposedly had 5 ships torpedoed out from under him. Amazing.

 

[Norumbega]

1942 onward
By July 1942 the days of easy pickings for the U-boats along the Eastern Seaboard of America were over. It was time for Donitz to switch his efforts back to his old hunting grounds in the mid-Atlantic. He had ample grounds for optimism. In May 1942 German experts had produced a study which concluded that if the U-boats were able to sink a monthly average of 700,000 tons of Allied merchant ships for the rest of the year, Britain, despite all the efforts of shipbuilding yards on both sides of the Atlantic, would be doomed.

Though this was more than twice the average monthly sinking's for 1941, Donitz felt confident of success. At the end of 1941, his U-boat fleet had totaled 236 vessels, which had been sinking 13 Allied merchant ships for every one of their own number lost. They had reduced the total available British merchant fleet by 3 million tons compared with the start of the war. And now Donitz was returning to the Atlantic convoy routes in a stronger position. He had a total U-boat strength of 331, of which 141 were operational and an average of 50 constantly on patrol. U-boat HQ at Chateau Kernival in Brittany had become expert in the close orchestration of the increasingly effective "wolf-pack" tactics.

Even more significantly, and often overlooked in favor of the better-known Allied successes in breaking the Enigma codes, the German cryptologists at "B-Dienst" had pierced the Royal Navy codes, giving details of the assembly points and sailing times of convoys, often giving U-boat HQ between 10 and 20 hours advance warning of enemy intentions. Just as valuable was German success which between February 1942 and June 1943 frequently enabled them to read the daily British Admiralty estimate of U-boat dispositions, though like the Allies, the Germans had to forgo using much information to avoid the enemy suspecting their success.

Despite the steadily increasing numbers of escort vessels becoming available for the convoys, increased air support, and technological advances in anti-submarine warfare, the results of the U-boat war in the second half of 1942 seemed to justify Donitz's hopes. During the last few months of the year, aided by the diversion of many Allied escorts to support the "Torch" landings in North Africa, the U-boats were sinking a monthly average of 650,000 tons. If the vessels sunk by aircraft, mines and such few surface raiders as were still at large were added to this total, Germany seemed on the verge of achieving the sinking rate demanded by her experts.

Unfortunately for Donitz's hopes, his planners had seriously underestimated Allied , particularly American, construction capacity. During 1943 US shipyards would produce 20 million tons of merchant shipping, ample to replace a total Allied loss during the previous year of about 7 ½ million tons, overestimated by the Germans as twice as much. Though there had been many apparently striking U-boat successes, such as the attack in August on convoy SC94, which had lost 26 ships, and the November assault on SC107, which sank 15 ships, these were deceptive. In fact, therefore, though not fully appreciated by either side, or indeed by many modern historians, at the end of the year the U-boats were no closer to decisive victory. Furthermore, the steadily increasing effectiveness of Allied anti-submarine measures was hinted at by the less favorable , for the Germans, sinking ratio, now running at 10 merchant ships for every U-boat lost.

The Decisive Months
It was apparent to both sides that the first half of 1943 would be decisive. Donitz began the year believing that the rate of sinkings being achieved by his crews was slightly outpacing the rate of Allied shipbuilding. His U-boat fleet had now increased to 400 vessels, of which 200 were operational, and an average of 100 at sea -10 more than the total which, at the start of the war, Donitz had argued would have been sufficient to bring decisive victory, although his estimates then had not allowed for US involvement.

Yet Allied effectiveness was also increasing. There were now over 500 escort vessels available, sufficient not only to provide stronger close protection for convoys, but also to allow the formation of "support" or hunter-killer groups, to reinforce convoys under attack. Equally significant were the on-going advances in anti-submarine warfare being made by the Allies. During the autumn of 1942 the increasingly effective air operations against U-boats crossing the Bay of Biscay in transit to and from their French bases received the welcome assistance of airborne radar. For a time in the autumn of 1942 the U-boats were given some protection against this threat by a radar detection device, but in February 1943 the Allies introduced a new short-wave radar which proved undetectable until the closing stages of the war.

Although it is unclear whether Donitz had fully grasped the fact, by the beginning of 1943 there were unmistakable signs that, if it had ever really existed, the window of opportunity for a decisive German victory in the Battle of the Atlantic was closing rapidly. The first four months of the year saw the rapid introduction by the Allies of a whole range of improved anti-submarine equipment and techniques. As well as improved aircraft-mounted radar, escort carriers were beginning to prove their worth and surface escorts were being equipped with radar, high frequency direction finders and improved anti-submarine weapons such as the "hedgehog" depth charge thrower.

Not only were escorts and aircraft proving more effective, there were also more of them. Between February and May the number of long-range "Liberator" anti-submarine aircraft available rose from ten to over sixty. Although the vast majority of US Navy escort vessels had been diverted by the needs of the Pacific War, leaving the RN and RCN to perform about 96% of escort duties in the North Atlantic, increasing the size of convoys had made it possible to raise the average number of escorts from six to nine, without increasing the vulnerability of the convoy. Sufficient escorts had also been released to allow the formation of five British convoy-support groups, the best known being that operating out of Liverpool under Captain J. F. "Johnny" Walker. They were later reinforced by a US group. Each group consisted of between five and seven destroyers and frigates, and three also had an escort carrier. Their role was to accompany convoys through the mid-Atlantic air gap., where they were most vulnerable to attack, whilst the presence of an escort carrier helped provide air support for the entire crossing.

Of equal, though again often underrated significance, was the success by now consistently being achieved by the Allied radio direction finders. Between July 1942 and May 1943 they managed to divert 105 out of a total of 174 North Atlantic convoys away from wolf-pack ambushes, and enabled another 23 partially to avoid such traps. Only 16 ran into large U-boat concentrations, and it was these which suffered the bulk of losses.

Despite all these favorable portents for the Allies, the first three months of 1943 saw continued notable U-boat successes. They were aided in part by wintry conditions in the North Atlantic, which made Allied detection less effective, and also by the introduction of the new U-boat Enigma cypher known to Bletchley Park as "Shark", which remained unbroken until the end of March.

In February convoy ON 16 lost 14 ships, with the overall merchant ship/U-boat kill ratio for the month standing at 7:1, a decline from the German high point of the previous year, but still offering U-boat Command grounds for hope.

The particularly foul weather of March, with convoys and their escorts straggling through gales, blizzards and hail, saw some of the fiercest battles of the war. The beginning of the month saw roughly 50 U-boats at sea. Between 7-10 March, convoy SC 121 lost six ships, with 199 men of their crews, experienced seamen who could be less easily spared than their ships. The next two convoys, SC 122 and HX 229, were even more savagely mauled by 44 U-boats from wolf packs Sturmer, Dranger and Raubgraf - the greatest U-boat concentration achieved in the entire war. A total of 22 ships of 146,000 tons were lost between March 8-18.

Into all of this, the 40 ships of convoy HX-230, which included the newly minted S.S. William P. Frye commanded by Master Meinhard Scherf, departed New York to Liverpool, England via Halifax Nova Scotia. She would be carrying a full load of general cargo including, 7,500 tons of military stores, 750 tons of explosives and wheat in Hold #1, and 5 LCT's (landing craft) lashed to her decks. It's crew consisted of 40 Merchant Marines and 24 Naval Armed Guard.

 

[Story]

I do not wish to monopolize someone else's thread, so perhaps I should limit this to a bit at a time, over time. To be cont'd

Norumbega,

Don't hesitate to share this tale in it's entirety, you have carte blanche as far as I'm concerned.

For what it's worth, the photographs I have of Liberty Ship crews often looked like they were composed 50% of Choir Boys, the officers being '90 Day Wonders', and the rest Old Salts that could have stepped straight off that pirate coastal freighter in the first Indianna Jones movie.

S

 

[Story]

200 years ago, the threat was pirates off the Barbary Coast. 65 years ago, it was U-Boats. Now, it's pirates again.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — With an alarming number of tankers and cargo ships getting hijacked on the high seas, the nation's maritime academies are offering more training to merchant seamen in how to fend off attacks from pirates armed not with cutlasses and flintlocks but automatic weapons and grenade launchers.

Colleges are teaching students to fishtail their vessels at high speed, drive off intruders with high-pressure water hoses and illuminate their decks with floodlights.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hw1u2BXIbOtQbqbRnj8UN-xWc4CQD963KOSG0